Thao-Ly Tam Phan-Vo, MD

Weight Management

Primary Office

Nemours Children's Hospital, Delaware Nemours Children's Hospital, Delaware 1600 Rockland Road Wilmington, DE 19803 Appointment: (800) 416-4441

Get to Know Me

Dr. Thao-Ly T. Phan is a pediatrician at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children. She is fellowship-trained in weight management, and is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Phan is a research scientist in the Nemours Center for Healthcare Delivery Science. Additionally she earned a Master's in Public Health at the Jefferson School of Population Health in 2015.

Why I Treat Children

“History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children” — Nelson Mandela I truly believe that the most meaningful impact we can have in this world is on children. I am extremely proud to work alongside families to build healthy foundations for children and healthy environments for them to thrive in.

What I'm Passionate About

I am passionate about helping families engage in healthy lifestyles and celebrating the strengths of their families, while providing the support they need.  

How I Try to Make A Difference

Whether it’s providing one-on-one counseling in my role as a doctor or evaluating family-centered programs in my role as a researcher, I try my best to understand what will make a positive difference in the lives of each family — on an individual and on a population level.

Education & Training

Fellowship

  • Pediatric Weight Management - Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, 2014

Internship Residency

  • Pediatrics - Jefferson Medical College/Alfred I. duPont Hosp., 2012

Medical/Dental School

  • MD - Brown University School of Medicine, 2009

Board Certifications

  • American Board of Pediatrics/General Pediatrics

Insurance Accepted

  • Aetna Better Health PA Kids HMO
  • Aetna HMO
  • Aetna PPO/POS/EPO
  • Amerihealth Caritas Delaware
  • Cigna/Great West HMO EPO POS
  • Cigna/Great West PPO
  • Delaware First Health
  • Delaware Medicaid/Diamond State
  • Delaware Medicare
  • Devon Health Services
  • Fidelis Care NJ Medicaid HMO
  • First Health/Affordable PPO
  • Global Medical Managment DE/PA
  • Health Partners Medicaid/Kidz Partner HMO
  • Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware
  • Highmark Medicaid Health Options
  • Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey
  • Independance Blue Cross/Amerihealth/Keystone Health Plan
  • Insurance Administrators of America
  • INTEGRA Administrative Group (ClaimsBridge)
  • Keystone First Medicaid HMO
  • Lifetrac Transplant
  • Maryland Medicaid
  • Multiplan PPO
  • National Transplant (Humana)
  • New Jersey Medicaid
  • Pennsylvania Medicaid
  • Plan Vista/NPPN PPO
  • Preferred Healthcare PPO
  • Private Health Care Systems (PHCS)
  • Qualcare HMO/POS/PPO
  • Star Healthcare Network
  • Three Rivers Provider Network
  • Tricare/Humana Military Health Services
  • United Healthcare of the Mid-Atlantic
  • UPMC MCAID/CHIP PA DE
  • Wellpoint Maryland Medcaid

  • Obesity

  • Persistent Disparities in Pediatric Health Care Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Public Health Reports; (2023).

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  • COVID-19 Exposure and Family Impact Scales for Adolescents and Young Adults; Journal of Pediatric Psychology; (2022).

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  • Flexible-Window Predictions on Electronic Health Records.; Proceedings of the ... AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence; (2022).

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  • Measuring BMI change among children and adolescents.; Pediatric obesity; (2022).

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  • Medical factors associated with caregiver intention to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.; Vaccine: X; (2022).

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  • Validation of the COVID-19 Exposure and Family Impact Scales.; Journal of pediatric psychology; (2022).

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  • Obesity Prediction with EHR Data: A deep learning approach with interpretable elements.; ACM transactions on computing for healthcare; (2022).

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  • Conducting a pediatric randomized clinical trial during a pandemic: A shift to virtual procedures.; Journal of clinical and translational science; (2022).

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  • Associations Between Weight and Lower Respiratory Tract Disease Outcomes in Hospitalized Children.; Hospital pediatrics; (2022).

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  • Active vs Traditional Methods of Recruiting Children for a Clinical Trial in Rural Primary Care Clinics: A Cluster-Randomized Clinical Trial.; JAMA network open; (2022).

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  • Interrelationships among age at adiposity rebound, BMI during childhood, and BMI after age 14 years in an electronic health record database.; Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.); (2022).

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  • Who will Leave a Pediatric Weight Management Program and When? - A machine learning approach for predicting attrition patterns; arXiv; (2022).

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  • Weight Status and Risk of Inpatient Admission for Children With Lower Respiratory Tract Disease.; Hospital pediatrics; (2021).

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  • Disparities in Delaware Caregiver Beliefs about the COVID-19 Vaccine for their Children.; Delaware journal of public health; (2021).

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  • A Longitudinal Comparison of Alternatives to CDC BMI Z-Scores for Children With Very High BMIs.; The Journal of pediatrics; (2021).

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  • Concurrent imputation and prediction on EHR data using bi-directional GANs; Proceedings of the 12th ACM Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Health Informatics; (2021).

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  • COVID-19 Exposure and Family Impact Scales: Factor Structure and Initial Psychometrics.; Journal of pediatric psychology; (2021).

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  • Obesity-related asthma in children: A role for vitamin D.; Pediatric pulmonology; (2020).

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  • Obesity prediction with EHR data: A deep learning approach with interpretable elements; arXiv; (2019).

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  • Electronic gaming characteristics associated with class 3 severe obesity in youth who attend the pediatric weight management programs of the COMPASS Network; Childhood Obesity; (2019).

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  • Electronic Gaming Characteristics Associated with Class 3 Severe Obesity in Youth Who Attend the Pediatric Weight Management Programs of the COMPASS Network; Childhood Obesity; (2019).

  • An Interpretable Prediction Model for Obesity Prediction using EHR Data; arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.02655; (2019).

  • Characteristics of Children 2 to 5 Years of Age With Severe Obesity. ; Pediatrics; (2018).

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  • Feasibility of Using a Commercial Fitness Tracker as an Adjunct to Family-Based Weight Management Treatment: Pilot Randomized Trial; JMIR mHealth and uHealth; (2018).

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  • A Narrative Review of Medical and Genetic Risk Factors among Children Age 5 and Younger with Severe Obesity.; Childhood obesity (Print); (2018).

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  • Impact of Psychosocial Risk on Outcomes among Families Seeking Treatment for Obesity.; The Journal of pediatrics; (2018).

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  • Integrating childhood obesity resources into the patient-centered medical home: Provider perspectives in the United States.; Journal of child health care : for professionals working with children in the hospital and community; (2018).

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  • Problem Video Gaming Among Children Enrolled in Tertiary Weight Management Programs.; Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking; (2017).

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  • Does parent bariatric surgery influence adolescent bariatric surgery outcomes?; Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases; (2017).

  • Weight Trajectory in Refugee Children after Resettling in the United States: A Pilot Study. ; Journal of pediatrics and child nutrition; (2016).

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  • Psychological contributors to noncompletion of an adolescent preoperative bariatric surgery program.; Surgery for obesity and related diseases : official journal of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery; (2016).

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  • Parent perception of weight-related behaviors in young children with obesity; Health Behavior and Policy Review; (2015).

  • Disparities in parent confidence managing child weight-related behaviors.; Patient education and counseling; (2014).

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  • Evaluation of Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Morbidly Obese Adolescents Seeking Bariatric Surgery; Chest; (2013).

  • Evaluation of Sleep Quality in Morbidly Obese Adolescents Seeking Bariatric Surgery; Chest; (2013).

  • A delayed-control trial examining the impact of body mass index recognition on obesity-related counseling; Clinical Pediatrics; (2013).

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  • A delayed-control trial examining the impact of body mass index recognition on obesity-related counseling; Clinical pediatrics; (2013).

  • Quarterly visits with glycated hemoglobin monitoring: the sweet spot for glycemic control in youth with type 1 diabetes.; Diabetes care; (2013).

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  • Evaluation of weight loss on a low-calorie meal replacement diet as a potential predictor of weight loss after laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding surgery in adolescents.; Obesity surgery; (2013).

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  • Does body mass index accurately reflect body fat? A comparison of anthropometric measures in the longitudinal assessment of fat mass.; Clinical pediatrics; (2012).

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  • Evaluation of intelligence in an adolescent bariatric population.; Surgery for obesity and related diseases : official journal of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery; (2012).

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  • English